No I'm not a collector, I just have the mindset of one I've bought Ouran, Death Note, Lucky Star, Naruto and more.
I kept the shirts in the Original Collector Edition box.
I bought Death Note keyrings separately and I use those

xD lol that's a good phrase Do you have a PhD in anime? XD
Sorry I don't know of any software like that... besides photoshop I don't really know much about digital art

Yeah, I don't understand why they do that, it's like they don't know how to count haha

Yeah, a painting takes up a lot of time and it was only 3 hours per week. I don't enjoy still life, but I drew a car once to see how well I could shade and it turned out better than I expected, I prefer drawing human faces.

oops, my bad then bro. nothing wrong with that right? :] nice dude theres some good anime in there keeping em' nice and safe i see :3
:0 are they awesome?! what do you use them for? x)

well, i for one think that i have earned it hbu?

photoshop is probably all i would need xD too bad its so expensive 0.0 its okay dude that was some great advice ^^

right? who knows why :s..

thats for sure >.< hey thats not so bad. any chance you have a picture of it? if its not too much trouble, would be awesome to see :] i admire that, human faces take a lot of skill ^.^

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

This might sound obvious, but I use the keyrings for keys... Yeah, they're nice, just light keyrings with the characters' carved onto it.

Hmmmm, I'd say I have a Bachelor in Anime, since... I find it hard to remember names of characters, and I skip a lot of the bad animes (at least I personally consider them bad) lol. So my knowledge on anime is not that great
I do get addicted to good shows and I've marathoned animes many times before

There is something similar to photoshop that is free, it's called Artweaver: http://www.artweaver.de/download-en
There are some tutorials on how to use it on that site if you're interested ^_^.

I don't know where all my old artbooks are, sorry about that (I am the worst when it comes to keeping stuff in order). The epic car picture was something I done when I was 14 xD.
But I can show you something recent, like this painting I've done this year (For a competition which I didn't win )

1) You assert that love is not observed in the animal kingdom, but homosexuality is. Your logic is flawed because it does not apply across the board. You contradict yourself. Bears, dogs, and numerous other animal species have been known to throw themselves in harm's way to protect their kin. Several bird species are monogamous. It is said that lovebirds will actually die without a companion (hence their name). There are numerous examples of dogs mourning their masters and waiting for them, and elephants have also been shown to mourn the dead and recognize the decomposed remains of their ancestors. You say this isn't love? Well, by that VERY same logic, I can easily say that homosexuality and bisexuality are NOT observed in the animal kingdom, they are merely mechanical actions taken to feel physical pleasure and assert dominance and NOT a sexual orientation, preference, or biological imperative. If the actions associated with love are not evidence of the emotion, then it follows that the actions associated with homosexuality or bisexuality are not evidence of sexual orientation.

It's not a contradiction, since I've asserted many times throughout this thread, that the instinct to protect one's offspring is instilled in all animals, mostly the females of that animal.
You people are the ones who think this instinct is the equivalent of "love".
If you think it's "love", then it's merely your opinion, it's not mine. A male lion does not have this instinct because it wants to dominate, therefore it tries to kill its male offspring instead.

Also, stimulation is stimulation. It is natural to seek out pleasure regardless of source. A dog will hump a stuffed animal or a person's leg, but we don't have a word for creatures which hump stuffed animals exclusively (well, maybe Otaku). Dolphins will bone anything. This is pretty natural. It is not natural for libido (an instinctual, biological drive which compels reproduction) to apply to members of the same gender while excluding the opposite gender. I've never heard of that happening in the animal kingdom beyond anecdotes. In other words, I have never heard of a purely homosexual animal from any nature magazine, television show, news article, biology class, zoo, or other reputable source. The only time I have ever heard of purely homosexual animals is in forums like this one. Frankly, I don't believe they exist.

So, in your opinion, why do sex toys exist? Is it because heterosexuality is now a lie too? Humans are merely seeking out pleasure?
Can a heterosexual male suddenly want to hump another male?
Your logic is flawed.

ALL Animals (including humans) act on stimulation, but it's clear that the homosexual animals prefer to stay with another male even though female counterparts are present. In the same way that a homosexual human male would rather stay with a male even though females are present.

If you've never heard of homosexual animals, why don't you try watching more Discovery Channel?

2) You accept that homosexuality has no evolutionary explanation, that it is a trait that would not be commonly passed on genetically, yet you claim it is still natural because it is probably caused by hormones in the womb and that is the reason the numbers are not declining. That makes no sense.

First, I have heard vague mention of similar ideas before but no evidence or study from any reputable source to support them.

Second, there has to be a cause for such a hormonal change to occur. Genetics are the largest determining factor for hormone production levels, so if it were not genetic, there would have to be an external factor changing these hormone levels. What on Earth do you think would cause such a thing? If it is abnormal diet, chemical exposure, exposure to electromagnetic fields or any other such outside interference, then it is certainly not "natural" even if it takes place inside the womb. It would validate the claim that some people are born that way, but it would also imply that homosexuality is essentially an anomaly caused before birth, in other words, a birth defect. If this were true, it would justify a lot of biases since it would prove homosexuality is a deviation from normal children.

Finally, your suggestion does nothing to explain the rapid increase in the professed homosexual portion of the population. It still relies on birth and the number of people claiming to be homosexual or bisexual is increasing at a rate significantly faster than the birthrate. An in-born trait cannot occur more often than births. The fact that the homosexual population is increasing more rapidly than the general population logically excludes the possibility that people are born that way (at least in the majority of cases). Your explanation is insufficient to explain the situation.

Why do you keep bringing up, "I've never heard of this I've never heard of that except on forums, there is no reputable source for this or that?". Just google it, and the articles will come up.

"Although epigenetic changes are usually temporary, they involve alterations in the proteins that bind together the long strands of DNA. Thus, they can sometimes be handed down to offspring. According to the hypothesis, homosexuality may be a carry-over from one's parents' own prenatal resistance to the hormones of the opposite sex. The "epi-marks" that adjusted parental genes to resist excess testosterone, for example, may alter gene activation in areas of the child's brain involved in sexual attraction and preference. "These epigenetic changes protect mom and dad during their own early development," Rice says. The initial benefit to the parents may explain why the trait of homosexuality persists throughout evolution, he says."

5) This is a side note, but one I thought I'd throw in. It isn't really relevant to the debate, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

Every homosexual I've met (except one) has claimed, "I've always been different!" Guess what. We ALL feel that way. Every individual is the protagonist in their own life story. We can only hear our own internal monologue. For this reason alone we all view ourselves differently than we view others. We all feel alienated at times. No human who has lived to adulthood has ever not felt that way. "The average man thinks he isn't."

That one exception -- the only openly gay person I've met who readily admits it was a chosen path, is a Vietnamese woman adopted by American parents after the war. When she was a child in Vietnam during the war, she witnessed several half-white babies and their mothers get murdered by the VC. This left her terrified of even the possibility of becoming pregnant, but she didn't want to be alone, so she chose the carpeted path.

So you believe that this one woman speaks for every homosexual person on the planet? Every homosexual person must have been affected by a traumatic event in childhood or some time in their life, that's why they're now homosexual?

And you believe she's being objective? She's not lying to you to further her agenda at all.

The same way that people think homosexuality can be cured... those people keep lying to themselves that they are now cured and it turns out they're still homosexual--how do you explain this situation?

You can't, because in your mind, that Vietnamese woman is your only TRUTH.

I still think you're backwards.

I would rather be backwards and believe in my fellow scientists than believing in your words (more specifically an agenda).

Much like luck .. I don't believe in good an evil. I make decisions about what I do and don't approve of, as opposed to letting people make those decisions for me. I'm a fan of justice and the rule of law, for the most part, though ..

No, I don't think so. At least, not completely or for a significant amount of time. There are even plants that behave in ways that can be considered "evil." For example; Cestrum parqui (ie: green cestrum, green poison berry, etc...), releases toxins that kill off all other competition and is deadly to predators. Japanese giant hornets slaughter bees in order to steal honey, which can easily be viewed as another prime example of "evil." I can hardly imagine plants and insects being successfully made to "be good," much less, humans. As far as I'm concerned, trying to purge "evil" is equivalent to attempting to totally block out UV radiation with modern sunscreen.

I do, however, believe that tiny pockets of human populations can have a fairly close semblance of being "good," like the monks of isolated Buddhist monasteries.

Hey, try using spoiler boxes or something man. We are getting more than a little off topic and not everyone wants to scroll through this whole thing.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

In my very first post I was mildly annoyed since I find the idea that love is unnatural preposterous. Every following post was more than completely level headed. A lot of information is lost in text and without tone of voice and body language as a guide, people tend to infer the emotions that they want to.

If you were to take a writing or debate class, you would learn about the use of logical fallacies in arguments. You have committed many here and you seem to be getting heated. I am not heated or angry at all. I see this as an intellectual exercise. Try taking the chip off your shoulder before reading.

It's not a contradiction, since I've asserted many times throughout this thread, that the instinct to protect one's offspring is instilled in all animals, mostly the females of that animal.
You people are the ones who think this instinct is the equivalent of "love".
If you think it's "love", then it's merely your opinion, it's not mine. A male lion does not have this instinct because it wants to dominate, therefore it tries to kill its male offspring instead.

These are logically the same type of (inductive, not deductive) argument. Both arguments can be boiled down to "If the characteristics are observed in other animal species in nature - outside of societal influences- then the characteristics are natural." They both use the same pattern of reasoning. If the reasoning is valid and the facts are true, then both arguments are valid. You may have a different definition of "love" and the argument is a semantic one, but it is illogical to use the same argument that you disagree with.That is your contradiction.

Also, I do not believe your information is correct.

You also mention that lions sometimes eat their male offspring. This is true. The same is true for some wolves. However you commit a logical fallacy here also: The existence of one thing does not exclude the possibility for the existence of another. If you really dislike chocolate ice cream, it does not mean that you dislike pizza. An alpha wolf sometimes eating its male offspring is not proof that it does not have affection for other members of the pack. The two phenomenon are not mutually exclusive.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Also, stimulation is stimulation. It is natural to seek out pleasure regardless of source. A dog will hump a stuffed animal or a person's leg, but we don't have a word for creatures which hump stuffed animals exclusively (well, maybe Otaku). Dolphins will bone anything. This is pretty natural. It is not natural for libido (an instinctual, biological drive which compels reproduction) to apply to members of the same gender while excluding the opposite gender. I've never heard of that happening in the animal kingdom beyond anecdotes.

So, in your opinion, why do sex toys exist? Is it because heterosexuality is now a lie too? Humans are merely seeking out pleasure?
Can a heterosexual male suddenly want to hump another male?
Your logic is flawed.

First, what do sex toys and lies have to do with anything? That could be considered the fallacy of "red herring" or a distraction ploy. Again, emotion is often lost in text, but you seem to be angry here and don't make a lot of sense.

Where exactly is my logic flawed? By all means, please point it out. I can improve that way.

I said that seeking pleasure is natural, but not to the point of excluding the opposite sex. To support this assertion, I mention dogs' and dolphins' infamous humping of anything combined with the fact that I have heard no reliable information on purely homosexual animal behavior.

Also, you seriously missed the joke I left in there.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

If you've never heard of homosexual animals, why don't you try watching more Discovery Channel?

What am I going to learn about homosexual animals from "The Amish Mafia"? Discovery might have had such programming 20 years ago. Seriously, where on the discovery channel did you see this? http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows

Your other links are pretty good stuff though. Thanks for posting something. Still, I find them lacking.

Your link to Yale Scientific is quite vague. The only mention of this behavior excluding heterosexual behavior was in hermaphroditic species and giraffes, and there was no mention of what the giraffe did the next week. It points out a few observed events, but it does not in any way confirm exclusive homosexual behavior in animals.

Now, a quote from your second source:

“A number of excellent reviews currently exist, which explore the hormonal and neural mechanisms underlying same-sex sexual behaviour (Adkins-Regan, 1988, 1998; Adkins-Regan et al, 1997; Parades and Baum. 1997). Important insights have been gained from such research. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to conclude that same-sex sexual behavior is aberrant when viewed through the lens of this type of invasive experimental work. Many of the animal models used in such studies do not appear to exhibit homosexual activity as part of their species-typical behavioural repertoires. Instead, such behavior had to be elicited experimentally, either by destroying areas of the brain or by exposing the subjects to abnormal levels of steroid hormones perpetually. For those researchers interested in spontaneously expressed same-sex sexual behaviour, the information gleaned from such studies may be limiting. Reflecting on this research emphasis, Adkins-Regan (1988) stated that more studies of same-sex sexual behavior in intact, untreated animals are needed.
Nevertheless, to date, there has been a relative paucity of research on the evolutionary aspects of homosexual behavior in intact, untreated animals. Moreover, locating the information that does exist has not always been an easy task, for it is often scattered throughout obscure journals, technical reports, and unpublished dissertations, or as Bagemihl has noted ‘buried even further under outdated value judgments and cryptic terminology’ (1999, p.87)."

So this basically states that test animals didn't go gay unless researchers destroyed their brains or drugged them. The rest of the paper goes on to speculate about how it may be possible for homosexual behavior to aid in reproduction in certain pack animals by alloying stronger siblings to preferentially breed. There are also a lot of mentions about the behavior showing dominance. Frankly, the book is a better support for my viewpoint than yours.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Why do you keep bringing up, "I've never heard of this I've never heard of that except on forums, there is no reputable source for this or that?". Just google it, and the articles will come up.

"Although epigenetic changes are usually temporary, they involve alterations in the proteins that bind together the long strands of DNA. Thus, they can sometimes be handed down to offspring. According to the hypothesis, homosexuality may be a carry-over from one's parents' own prenatal resistance to the hormones of the opposite sex. The "epi-marks" that adjusted parental genes to resist excess testosterone, for example, may alter gene activation in areas of the child's brain involved in sexual attraction and preference. "These epigenetic changes protect mom and dad during their own early development," Rice says. The initial benefit to the parents may explain why the trait of homosexuality persists throughout evolution, he says."

If you went to a gunfight, would you expect your opponent to bring you ammunition? I read new articles daily and have not encountered such a thing. If you have one, at least mention what it is about. I can't look up all your evidence for you.

And yes, you're right. There is an article I'll give you that. It is an article that explains a hypothesis (and it is a reasonably good hypothesis) but has it is still just a hypothesis. It contains no research beyond observing pigeons from a window, has no data to support it yet (although I hope they get funded to conduct a study) and it provides no potential root cause for the phenomenon. What causes these hormone spikes in the first place? They explain a possible mechanism for how it happens, but not why it happens. More importantly, it STILL RELIES ON BIRTH and therefore does not explain how the homosexual portion of the population continues to grow faster than the birthrate. Even if this turned out to be true, it would only explain a small portion of the self-professed homosexuals.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

5) This is a side note, but one I thought I'd throw in. It isn't really relevant to the debate, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

Every homosexual I've met (except one) has claimed, "I've always been different!" Guess what. We ALL feel that way. Every individual is the protagonist in their own life story. We can only hear our own internal monologue. For this reason alone we all view ourselves differently than we view others. We all feel alienated at times. No human who has lived to adulthood has ever not felt that way. "The average man thinks he isn't."

That one exception -- the only openly gay person I've met who readily admits it was a chosen path, is a Vietnamese woman adopted by American parents after the war. When she was a child in Vietnam during the war, she witnessed several half-white babies and their mothers get murdered by the VC. This left her terrified of even the possibility of becoming pregnant, but she didn't want to be alone, so she chose the carpeted path.

So you believe that this one woman speaks for every homosexual person on the planet? Every homosexual person must have been affected by a traumatic event in childhood or some time in their life, that's why they're now homosexual?

And you believe she's being objective? She's not lying to you to further her agenda at all.

The same way that people think homosexuality can be cured... those people keep lying to themselves that they are now cured and it turns out they're still homosexual--how do you explain this situation?

You can't, because in your mind, that Vietnamese woman is your only TRUTH.

Again, a lot of emotion is lost in text, but WOW, you seem to have gotten angry there. I wrote, "This is a side note, but one I thought I'd throw in. It isn't really relevant to the debate, but it is food for thought nonetheless. " I even numbered the sections to show that that entire section was unrelated. In retrospect, it might have been prudent to omit it. But since you brought it up:

I NEVER suggested that this one woman's circumstances were the case for all homosexuals. No, if I had done that, I would have been guilty of committing the logical fallacy of "argument by example." Just because a thing is true in one circumstance does not mean that it is true in all circumstances. I didn't really have a point other than as a vaguely connected side story, but thinking about it now it does show that not all homosexuality is naturally born. Of course it does not prove that some are not born that way.

As for her agenda, I can conceive of no reason she would have any. She is a grown woman who has been living in the US for forty years, she was an acquaintance of a friend-of-a-friend and there was no relationship between us to improve or damage, I was not flirting with her, there was no money exchanged, nothing. What agenda? Are you wearing a foil hat now? Calm down.

The only reason I found out is that I am a curious guy. I think people are people everywhere and most stories of villains are propaganda. I'm also a history buff and nothing beats first-hand information. Since I am a US veteran (albeit younger that Vietnam era) a member of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), and I lived in an area that had a large Vietnamese population (relatively speaking) I found the topic particularly interesting and took the opportunity to collect first-hand war stories from both sides. That is one of the many stories I collected.

However, in this case you have committed the "straw man" logical fallacy -- claiming that your opposition said things that were not said or "putting words into someone's mouth."

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

I still think you're backwards.

I would rather be backwards and believe in my fellow scientists than believing in your words (more specifically an agenda).

OK, now it seems that you are just lashing out at me. Lets set a few things straight (no pun intended):

1) I NEVER at any point in any of my posts said anything about homosexuality being wrong. I actively tried to be careful not to give that impression.

You said that love is an unnatural, conditioned response but homosexuality is an inborn trait.
I said that you are backwards. Homosexuality is a conditioned response, but the capacity to love is an inborn trait. THAT IS ALL this debate was about.

But you accuse me of having an agenda. What agenda?
Do you have an agenda? Are you trying to get people to shun their loved ones because love is unnatural? I never imagined that, so why do you imagine that I have an agenda?

2) "Fellow scientists" -- Alright, what exactly do you think a real scientist is? What do you do that qualifies you as a scientist? In Junior High School I learned that the definition of science was "The rational and methodical attempt to explain an observed phenomenon by hypothesizing about the nature of the phenomenon and then performing controlled (with one control variable if possible), documented, and repeatable experimentation to prove or disprove that hypothesis." In other words, science is a process and not a set of ideas or rules. I would call a scientist a person who doubts everything until the scientific processes has been thoroughly performed. A good scientist scrutinizes everything. The fact that you would rather " believe in my fellow scientists" pretty much proves that you aren't a scientist. Science is a competitive industry and scientists scrutinize eachother all the time. When you believe in something without proof, that is called "faith" and evidence is not proof. There is nothing wrong in believing in a thing without absolute proof, but it doesn't count as "science."

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest, but I assure you that I am quite well educated, especially in the sciences.

3) You say I have no scientific or objective evidence. Well, I have some (which you mostly ignored).

Of course I cannot prove that love exists naturally - it is rather a subjective thing and current technology doesn't allow for mind reading. My evidence to support the notion that love is natural is not absolute, and by its very nature cannot be. There is a difference between inductive and deductive argumentation and there is a difference between evidence and proof. If you want to believe that love is unnatural, you can believe that. I tried to argue and give evidence to the contrary, but I cannot make you believe that my input is valid (even though it totally is).

Frankly I have witnessed some of the most terrible things humans are capable of and I see how easily hatred, rage, and self-absorption come to some people. I have also seen the smallest children give everything they had for a friend. I have to believe that love is natural because the opposite is so easy. If you think love is an artificial socially conditioned construct, then I pity you.

However I do have a lot of evidence that homosexuality is a conditioned response. Your own book quotation for starters (when you have to lobotomize and drug a test animal to go gay, I don't think it counts as "natural" anymore), the US census between 1990 and 2000 (you can look it up) for another. Birth cannot logically be a factor (in the majority of cases) when the homosexual population grows faster than the birthrate.

4)I am largely libertarian in my political and moral views. What anyone does privately is none of my business. I don't find homosexuality offensive. It doesn't hurt me any. What bothers me is that I simply cannot understand WHY free adults look for excuses, even if those excuses contradict the best scientific knowledge (in this case, natural selection) available.

Well, this has been done to death. You can reply if you want to and I'll probably read it, but I have no intention of dragging this on any further by replying again.

I suggest reading on logical fallacies. Different authors break them up and categorize them differently. Depending on whom you ask, there are between 7 and 20 common logical fallacies. It is good debate practice.

I also suggest reading on Operant Conditioning Theory. It is really fascinating.

No, I don't think so. At least, not completely or for a significant amount of time. There are even plants that behave in ways that can be considered "evil." For example; Cestrum parqui (ie: green cestrum, green poison berry, etc...), releases toxins that kill off all other competition and is deadly to predators. Japanese giant hornets slaughter bees in order to steal honey, which can easily be viewed as another prime example of "evil." I can hardly imagine plants and insects being successfully made to "be good," much less, humans. As far as I'm concerned, trying to purge "evil" is equivalent to attempting to totally block out UV radiation with modern sunscreen.

I do, however, believe that tiny pockets of human populations can have a fairly close semblance of being "good," like the monks of isolated Buddhist monasteries.

There is a quote, "Evil only flourishes when good men do nothing." I very much believe this to be true.

You say that isolated monks can be close to being good, but if they are isolated they cannot take a stand against evil. So how good are they? I would argue that isolationist behavior for the sake of avoiding "worldly" evil is in itself an act of evil.

Just a fun thought.

Also, I agree that evil will never be purged from humanity. It is part of what we are.

Hey, try using spoiler boxes or something man. We are getting more than a little off topic and not everyone wants to scroll through this whole thing.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

In my very first post I was mildly annoyed since I find the idea that love is unnatural preposterous. Every following post was more than completely level headed. A lot of information is lost in text and without tone of voice and body language as a guide, people tend to infer the emotions that they want to.

If you were to take a writing or debate class, you would learn about the use of logical fallacies in arguments. You have committed many here and you seem to be getting heated. I am not heated or angry at all. I see this as an intellectual exercise. Try taking the chip off your shoulder before reading.

It's not a contradiction, since I've asserted many times throughout this thread, that the instinct to protect one's offspring is instilled in all animals, mostly the females of that animal.
You people are the ones who think this instinct is the equivalent of "love".
If you think it's "love", then it's merely your opinion, it's not mine. A male lion does not have this instinct because it wants to dominate, therefore it tries to kill its male offspring instead.

These are logically the same type of (inductive, not deductive) argument. Both arguments can be boiled down to "If the characteristics are observed in other animal species in nature - outside of societal influences- then the characteristics are natural." They both use the same pattern of reasoning. If the reasoning is valid and the facts are true, then both arguments are valid. You may have a different definition of "love" and the argument is a semantic one, but it is illogical to use the same argument that you disagree with.That is your contradiction.

Also, I do not believe your information is correct.

You also mention that lions sometimes eat their male offspring. This is true. The same is true for some wolves. However you commit a logical fallacy here also: The existence of one thing does not exclude the possibility for the existence of another. If you really dislike chocolate ice cream, it does not mean that you dislike pizza. An alpha wolf sometimes eating its male offspring is not proof that it does not have affection for other members of the pack. The two phenomenon are not mutually exclusive.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Also, stimulation is stimulation. It is natural to seek out pleasure regardless of source. A dog will hump a stuffed animal or a person's leg, but we don't have a word for creatures which hump stuffed animals exclusively (well, maybe Otaku). Dolphins will bone anything. This is pretty natural. It is not natural for libido (an instinctual, biological drive which compels reproduction) to apply to members of the same gender while excluding the opposite gender. I've never heard of that happening in the animal kingdom beyond anecdotes.

So, in your opinion, why do sex toys exist? Is it because heterosexuality is now a lie too? Humans are merely seeking out pleasure?
Can a heterosexual male suddenly want to hump another male?
Your logic is flawed.

First, what do sex toys and lies have to do with anything? That could be considered the fallacy of "red herring" or a distraction ploy. Again, emotion is often lost in text, but you seem to be angry here and don't make a lot of sense.

Where exactly is my logic flawed? By all means, please point it out. I can improve that way.

I said that seeking pleasure is natural, but not to the point of excluding the opposite sex. To support this assertion, I mention dogs' and dolphins' infamous humping of anything combined with the fact that I have heard no reliable information on purely homosexual animal behavior.

Also, you seriously missed the joke I left in there.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

If you've never heard of homosexual animals, why don't you try watching more Discovery Channel?

What am I going to learn about homosexual animals from "The Amish Mafia"? Discovery might have had such programming 20 years ago. Seriously, where on the discovery channel did you see this? http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows

Your other links are pretty good stuff though. Thanks for posting something. Still, I find them lacking.

Your link to Yale Scientific is quite vague. The only mention of this behavior excluding heterosexual behavior was in hermaphroditic species and giraffes, and there was no mention of what the giraffe did the next week. It points out a few observed events, but it does not in any way confirm exclusive homosexual behavior in animals.

Now, a quote from your second source:

“A number of excellent reviews currently exist, which explore the hormonal and neural mechanisms underlying same-sex sexual behaviour (Adkins-Regan, 1988, 1998; Adkins-Regan et al, 1997; Parades and Baum. 1997). Important insights have been gained from such research. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to conclude that same-sex sexual behavior is aberrant when viewed through the lens of this type of invasive experimental work. Many of the animal models used in such studies do not appear to exhibit homosexual activity as part of their species-typical behavioural repertoires. Instead, such behavior had to be elicited experimentally, either by destroying areas of the brain or by exposing the subjects to abnormal levels of steroid hormones perpetually. For those researchers interested in spontaneously expressed same-sex sexual behaviour, the information gleaned from such studies may be limiting. Reflecting on this research emphasis, Adkins-Regan (1988) stated that more studies of same-sex sexual behavior in intact, untreated animals are needed.
Nevertheless, to date, there has been a relative paucity of research on the evolutionary aspects of homosexual behavior in intact, untreated animals. Moreover, locating the information that does exist has not always been an easy task, for it is often scattered throughout obscure journals, technical reports, and unpublished dissertations, or as Bagemihl has noted ‘buried even further under outdated value judgments and cryptic terminology’ (1999, p.87)."

So this basically states that test animals didn't go gay unless researchers destroyed their brains or drugged them. The rest of the paper goes on to speculate about how it may be possible for homosexual behavior to aid in reproduction in certain pack animals by alloying stronger siblings to preferentially breed. There are also a lot of mentions about the behavior showing dominance. Frankly, the book is a better support for my viewpoint than yours.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Why do you keep bringing up, "I've never heard of this I've never heard of that except on forums, there is no reputable source for this or that?". Just google it, and the articles will come up.

"Although epigenetic changes are usually temporary, they involve alterations in the proteins that bind together the long strands of DNA. Thus, they can sometimes be handed down to offspring. According to the hypothesis, homosexuality may be a carry-over from one's parents' own prenatal resistance to the hormones of the opposite sex. The "epi-marks" that adjusted parental genes to resist excess testosterone, for example, may alter gene activation in areas of the child's brain involved in sexual attraction and preference. "These epigenetic changes protect mom and dad during their own early development," Rice says. The initial benefit to the parents may explain why the trait of homosexuality persists throughout evolution, he says."

If you went to a gunfight, would you expect your opponent to bring you ammunition? I read new articles daily and have not encountered such a thing. If you have one, at least mention what it is about. I can't look up all your evidence for you.

And yes, you're right. There is an article I'll give you that. It is an article that explains a hypothesis (and it is a reasonably good hypothesis) but has it is still just a hypothesis. It contains no research beyond observing pigeons from a window, has no data to support it yet (although I hope they get funded to conduct a study) and it provides no potential root cause for the phenomenon. What causes these hormone spikes in the first place? They explain a possible mechanism for how it happens, but not why it happens. More importantly, it STILL RELIES ON BIRTH and therefore does not explain how the homosexual portion of the population continues to grow faster than the birthrate. Even if this turned out to be true, it would only explain a small portion of the self-professed homosexuals.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

5) This is a side note, but one I thought I'd throw in. It isn't really relevant to the debate, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

Every homosexual I've met (except one) has claimed, "I've always been different!" Guess what. We ALL feel that way. Every individual is the protagonist in their own life story. We can only hear our own internal monologue. For this reason alone we all view ourselves differently than we view others. We all feel alienated at times. No human who has lived to adulthood has ever not felt that way. "The average man thinks he isn't."

That one exception -- the only openly gay person I've met who readily admits it was a chosen path, is a Vietnamese woman adopted by American parents after the war. When she was a child in Vietnam during the war, she witnessed several half-white babies and their mothers get murdered by the VC. This left her terrified of even the possibility of becoming pregnant, but she didn't want to be alone, so she chose the carpeted path.

So you believe that this one woman speaks for every homosexual person on the planet? Every homosexual person must have been affected by a traumatic event in childhood or some time in their life, that's why they're now homosexual?

And you believe she's being objective? She's not lying to you to further her agenda at all.

The same way that people think homosexuality can be cured... those people keep lying to themselves that they are now cured and it turns out they're still homosexual--how do you explain this situation?

You can't, because in your mind, that Vietnamese woman is your only TRUTH.

Again, a lot of emotion is lost in text, but WOW, you seem to have gotten angry there. I wrote, "This is a side note, but one I thought I'd throw in. It isn't really relevant to the debate, but it is food for thought nonetheless. " I even numbered the sections to show that that entire section was unrelated. In retrospect, it might have been prudent to omit it. But since you brought it up:

I NEVER suggested that this one woman's circumstances were the case for all homosexuals. No, if I had done that, I would have been guilty of committing the logical fallacy of "argument by example." Just because a thing is true in one circumstance does not mean that it is true in all circumstances. I didn't really have a point other than as a vaguely connected side story, but thinking about it now it does show that not all homosexuality is naturally born. Of course it does not prove that some are not born that way.

As for her agenda, I can conceive of no reason she would have any. She is a grown woman who has been living in the US for forty years, she was an acquaintance of a friend-of-a-friend and there was no relationship between us to improve or damage, I was not flirting with her, there was no money exchanged, nothing. What agenda? Are you wearing a foil hat now? Calm down.

The only reason I found out is that I am a curious guy. I think people are people everywhere and most stories of villains are propaganda. I'm also a history buff and nothing beats first-hand information. Since I am a US veteran (albeit younger that Vietnam era) a member of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), and I lived in an area that had a large Vietnamese population (relatively speaking) I found the topic particularly interesting and took the opportunity to collect first-hand war stories from both sides. That is one of the many stories I collected.

However, in this case you have committed the "straw man" logical fallacy -- claiming that your opposition said things that were not said or "putting words into someone's mouth."

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

I still think you're backwards.

I would rather be backwards and believe in my fellow scientists than believing in your words (more specifically an agenda).

OK, now it seems that you are just lashing out at me. Lets set a few things straight (no pun intended):

1) I NEVER at any point in any of my posts said anything about homosexuality being wrong. I actively tried to be careful not to give that impression.

You said that love is an unnatural, conditioned response but homosexuality is an inborn trait.
I said that you are backwards. Homosexuality is a conditioned response, but the capacity to love is an inborn trait. THAT IS ALL this debate was about.

But you accuse me of having an agenda. What agenda?
Do you have an agenda? Are you trying to get people to shun their loved ones because love is unnatural? I never imagined that, so why do you imagine that I have an agenda?

2) "Fellow scientists" -- Alright, what exactly do you think a real scientist is? What do you do that qualifies you as a scientist? In Junior High School I learned that the definition of science was "The rational and methodical attempt to explain an observed phenomenon by hypothesizing about the nature of the phenomenon and then performing controlled (with one control variable if possible), documented, and repeatable experimentation to prove or disprove that hypothesis." In other words, science is a process and not a set of ideas or rules. I would call a scientist a person who doubts everything until the scientific processes has been thoroughly performed. A good scientist scrutinizes everything. The fact that you would rather " believe in my fellow scientists" pretty much proves that you aren't a scientist. Science is a competitive industry and scientists scrutinize eachother all the time. When you believe in something without proof, that is called "faith" and evidence is not proof. There is nothing wrong in believing in a thing without absolute proof, but it doesn't count as "science."

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest, but I assure you that I am quite well educated, especially in the sciences.

3) You say I have no scientific or objective evidence. Well, I have some (which you mostly ignored).

Of course I cannot prove that love exists naturally - it is rather a subjective thing and current technology doesn't allow for mind reading. My evidence to support the notion that love is natural is not absolute, and by its very nature cannot be. There is a difference between inductive and deductive argumentation and there is a difference between evidence and proof. If you want to believe that love is unnatural, you can believe that. I tried to argue and give evidence to the contrary, but I cannot make you believe that my input is valid (even though it totally is).

Frankly I have witnessed some of the most terrible things humans are capable of and I see how easily hatred, rage, and self-absorption come to some people. I have also seen the smallest children give everything they had for a friend. I have to believe that love is natural because the opposite is so easy. If you think love is an artificial socially conditioned construct, then I pity you.

However I do have a lot of evidence that homosexuality is a conditioned response. Your own book quotation for starters (when you have to lobotomize and drug a test animal to go gay, I don't think it counts as "natural" anymore), the US census between 1990 and 2000 (you can look it up) for another. Birth cannot logically be a factor (in the majority of cases) when the homosexual population grows faster than the birthrate.

4)I am largely libertarian in my political and moral views. What anyone does privately is none of my business. I don't find homosexuality offensive. It doesn't hurt me any. What bothers me is that I simply cannot understand WHY free adults look for excuses, even if those excuses contradict the best scientific knowledge (in this case, natural selection) available.

Well, this has been done to death. You can reply if you want to and I'll probably read it, but I have no intention of dragging this on any further by replying again.

I suggest reading on logical fallacies. Different authors break them up and categorize them differently. Depending on whom you ask, there are between 7 and 20 common logical fallacies. It is good debate practice.

I also suggest reading on Operant Conditioning Theory. It is really fascinating.

Have a good one.

Well, since you're no longer interested in continuing this debate, I'll make a concluding statement.

Yes, I am a scientist, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, read 100's of genuine scientific articles and is currently in a science job right now; if that doesn't qualify me as a scientist, I don't know what will.

I never said anything about you saying "homosexuality is wrong", nor did I lash out. This is the nature of a debate, it's to ask rhetorical questions to provoke deeper thoughts on why the opposition's statements are illogical or flawed.

Feel free to say homosexuality is a defect, and I still wouldn't get offended; words used in a scientific context with scientific evidence to back it up cannot offend me. I'm not a politically correct person who gets offended at words. Like I said before, I respect the decision for anyone to say homosexuality is socially conditioned.

Like I said, your statements have no scientific/objective evidence to back it up; it is merely your own thinking and opinion. You say evolution doesn't support homosexuality "increasing" in rates, but I've already countered such claims with my "homosexuality occurring in the womb" hypothesis, which is thought up by other scientists, it's not just my own opinion. If a trait occurs in the womb, it's not going to decrease. I never said my hypothesis was a FACT, go back and read my original statement, I've used the word "probably" when making this statement.
Your evidence is at best, your own opinion and your lack of understanding of what evolution is about. You don't even referenced other scientists when making the claim, that "homosexuality is socially conditioned", you used IRRELEVANT scientific theories such as "Pavlov's dogs" and "Evolution" to support your claim.

You've used "Evolution" to say that homosexuality in humans are socially conditioned; yet you abandon this theory when I said that homosexuality is observed in animals; by saying that humans are different from animals in terms of sexuality in that humans somehow don't act on stimulation, and only animals act on stimulation by humping foot or objects.
The Theory of Evolution treats humans as part of the animal kingdom, if you didn't know. Therefore some things that animals do, can be applied to humans as well. You can't just say humans are now different to animals, and then proceed to use Evolution to back up your own opinion.

I know about logical fallacies, I'm not the one making them. I just happen know the difference between scientific evidence and a pure opinion.

Your statements occur in the opinion category, and people who try to use Evolution or scientific theories in the incorrect manner to back up their own opinion--that's called setting an agenda.

Your agenda in this case is trying to get people to believe that homosexuality is socially conditioned by using evolution to back up your points and several anecdotes that were entirely subjective in nature.

And like I said, I don't care if you think homosexuality was socially conditioned, all I care about is, if you use scientific evidence in the wrong manner to back up your claim, I have the right to counter such a claim. I don't have the right to change your mind about your stance on whether homosexuality is natural occurring or environmentally affected.

No, I don't think so. At least, not completely or for a significant amount of time. There are even plants that behave in ways that can be considered "evil." For example; Cestrum parqui (ie: green cestrum, green poison berry, etc...), releases toxins that kill off all other competition and is deadly to predators. Japanese giant hornets slaughter bees in order to steal honey, which can easily be viewed as another prime example of "evil." I can hardly imagine plants and insects being successfully made to "be good," much less, humans. As far as I'm concerned, trying to purge "evil" is equivalent to attempting to totally block out UV radiation with modern sunscreen.

I do, however, believe that tiny pockets of human populations can have a fairly close semblance of being "good," like the monks of isolated Buddhist monasteries.

There is a quote, "Evil only flourishes when good men do nothing." I very much believe this to be true.

You say that isolated monks can be close to being good, but if they are isolated they cannot take a stand against evil. So how good are they? I would argue that isolationist behavior for the sake of avoiding "worldly" evil is in itself an act of evil.

Just a fun thought.

Also, I agree that evil will never be purged from humanity. It is part of what we are.

I found it fairly difficult to produce an example without rambling, so I was forced to settle with the bit about Buddhist monks.

I always found that evil is an incredibly convoluted subject, like art. To me, a significant reason as to why we cannot be rid of evil is because the perception of evil is subjective.

If there is no bad, there is no good. Balance is the key. Life is the pinnacle of that understanding. When something is out of balance there are always ramifications. I'm not talking fairness mind you. That's completely different.

Without death there is no birth. What's the opposite of life then? Life has no opposite. If there is, our current human understanding hasn't perceived it yet. One could argue non-existence as the opposite, but as you could imagine that's difficult to prove.

The ONLY way I see Humanity overcoming a significant portion of its current flaws/problems/evil tendencies is through some sort of evolution. I think physical evolution would do more harm than good, but psychological evolution would be most beneficial.

dyingsoonwrote:
and if there is a designer why did he design rape to be evil instead of eating your own crap.

This is an actual research topic called: THEODICY.

It's the attempt to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling the traditional divine characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world.

Essentially a human mind, regardless of which millennium it was born to, is capable of recognizing the obvious flaws in whatever religious system they're born into. This is done simply by paying heed to the vast amount of injustice, pain and suffering in the world around them. The conclusion was most famously reached by Epicurious, an Athenian living around 300 B.C. but has been restated repeatedly by thinkers and philosophers and laymen again and again throughout history.

If God is unwilling to prevent suffering -- God is either impotent, or evil.

.......If I had a dollar for every time someone..... Look, evil is a choice that people make, not something that can be blamed on something or someone else. That's all a cop-out people make to escape blame or responsibility for their own choices and actions. Evil is choosing to do harm to yourself, others, or society. It is intentional, and not blindly done. People sometimes wrongly label things or people as "evil", but they are actually "tragic" instead, like unfortunate things that happen unintentionally, by either the sane (short-sighted/ignorant) or the insane (have no control of themselves).

Expecting a higher power or anyone else to save humanity from itself is like expecting our moms to wipe our asses after taking a dump even though we're adults and physically able to wipe our own sh*t off.

I see it as more like expecting Dad to to something when Uncle Bad-Touch started unzipping his pants when you were a kid.

This isn't about escaping blame or responsibility for my choices; it's about asking for help when someone stronger than me decides to inflict his evil choices on me.

I was talking about people wanting evil in general eradicated by a deity, not people who want help.

While I recognize the distinction, I don't see it's relevance. It strikes me more as a semantic quibble about the analogy.

By not eradicating evil, any prospective deity is refusing to help every single victim of evil. Even the innocent ones, who made no choices. Stopping evil is not "saving us from ourselves," it's "saving one man from the predations of his neighbour."

I think the big question is, "Where does evil come from, & what is evil?" Is it genetic or environmental? Is it learned or what? Are people driven to it? Is it an entire entity itself, or just random actions of random people? I have my own ideas about this, but they are not written in stone, I'm open to whomever can prove otherwise....

If we're going to ask a deity to eradicate evil, why stop there? How about making everyone healthy & intelligent, eradicate diseases/illnesses? Why not ask for immortality too while we're at it? No more deaths from accidents, or "before their time" deaths.....Just wondering......